English

Noun

corduroy ‎(plural corduroys)

1. A heavy fabric, usually made of cotton, with vertical ribs.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 2, in The Celebrity:

     Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. […] A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes.

   • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 4, in Crime out of Mind:

     We turned to see a muscular young man lounging in the door which led into the sitting-room. He wore green corduroy trousers, a duffle coat and an old school tie.

Derived terms

• corduroys
• corduroy road

Translations

Verb

corduroy ‎(third-person singular simple present corduroys, present participle corduroying, simple past and past participle corduroyed)

1. To make (a road) by laying down split logs or tree-trunks over a marsh, swamp etc.
   • 1886, Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, chapter 53

     The night was very dark and it rained heavily, the roads were so bad that the troops had to cut trees and corduroy the road a part of the way, to get through.

   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford 2004, pp. 827-8:

     But Sherman organized “pioneer battalions” of soldiers and freedmen [...] to cut saplings and trees to corduroy the roads, build bridges, and construct causeways.

Translations